PART 3

Note to my readers: Into the seemingly endless stream of blather regarding gun control in the United States, I have contributed even more blather, in the form of excerpts from a short story that I wrote. Since it runs long, I have broken it down into 4 parts. It is best read in order, starting with Part 1. It is (for the most part) factual, however, names and some inconsequential details have been changed to protect the innocent.

The narrative continues:

We panicked…

I don’t remember which one of us was in the car first – I don’t even remember taking any special precautions with the revolver, but later I found it tossed under the front seat, still loaded with seven live cartridges and two spent ones. There wasn’t time to do anything but run. Earl Hackleman’s big Dodge 4 by 4 was bearing down hard on us. By the time I put the car in gear, and hit the gas, he wasn’t more than a hundred yards distant. I slammed the Plymouth into first gear and we lurched away down the rutted cow pasture path toward the gravel road. I hit second gear and we nose dived into a washout that almost twisted the steering wheel from my grip.

“Ya want me to drive?” yelled Lenny, “Jeez, what’s the matter with you, get a move on.”

“We won’t be going anywhere if I bust an axle out here,” I shouted back.

I drove as fast as I could, over the rough terrain, but I knew that the low slung car was no match for a souped-up off the road vehicle like Hackelman’s. My only hope was that I could beat him to the gravel road. There I knew I could out distance him. I glanced into the rearview mirror, and for a second I couldn’t believe our luck. It looked as if the headlights behind me had stopped closing in.

Hackleman had apparently stopped at his firing range to make sure everything was okay – like we might have messed with his sandbag or maybe he thought we’d dropped off a platoon of commie commandos, I don’t know, but I saw a flashlight beam shoot from the window of the stopped truck and sweep across the firing range. That lasted for only a few seconds, before the truck was on the move again, chasing us down on the rutted path. Stopping had been his mistake, if he had any hope of running us down. It was all the time I needed to make it to the gravel road ahead of him.

We rolled over the cattle crossing with Hackleman’s headlights close behind, but not close enough. Safely on the gravel road, I dropped the Plymouth into fourth gear, dumped the clutch and punched the gas pedal to the floor. We roared forward with tires spinning, leaving a hailstorm of gravel and dust in our wake. Behind us I could see Hackleman’s headlights turning onto the gravel road from the cow path, and for a moment it looked like he might be following us, but a few seconds later he dropped back, and then the lights were gone. I kept the pedal down until we reached the highway, half expecting Hackleman’s truck to appear out of nowhere, right on my bumper with headlights blazing, but it didn’t happen. We were on the blacktop headed back toward town before either Lenny or I spoke. It was Lenny:

“I think Harry ripped you off on that pistol.”

I didn’t answer him.

 *

The next morning I took the revolver from the car and emptied the shells from the chamber and threw away the two spend casings. Then I wrapped the gun carefully in cheese cloth and put it, and the box of Remington cartridges, in the bottom of an old tackle box that I kept under the workbench in my garage. Then, I once again forgot about the gun, until…

…one morning, two or three weeks after the incident out at Heckleman’s farm, Lenny came into the café where I was eating breakfast. He sat down across from me and we made small talk for a bit, even laughing about that night we’d outrun Heckelman.  Then he told me that he was leaving town. It seems Lenny had grown dissatisfied working in the family business with his father and two brothers and had decided to move to California. He had an uncle in Fresno who had offered to put him up for awhile, until he could find a job, and he’d decided to leave the next day.

“Say,” he said to me finally. “You wouldn’t want to sell that pistol, would you?”

“Why would you want it,” I said, “you told me Harry ripped me off.”

Lenny shrugged. “Maybe he did. But I need a gun for the road, and I don’t have a lot of time to shop around.” Then he reached into his pocket and pulled out a roll of bills. Lenny was suddenly flush with cash, having sold his share of the business to his father and brothers. He pushed a fifty dollar bill across the table toward me.

I looked at the fifty – it wasn’t a denomination that I saw every day. At the time it was nearly half a weeks pay. It was also more cash than I was likely to ever get for the pistol, so I gave the transaction serious thought.

I had known Lenny for years, and he was a good and honest friend. But I hesitated to sell him the gun – not that I feared Lenny would use the pistol for any criminal purpose, but he was reckless and careless. If I have ever heard an inner voice (and listened to it) it was that day in the café sitting across from Lenny with that fifty dollar bill on the table.

“Naw,” I said,  “I better keep it around.” I pushed the bill back across the table. “A guy never knows when he’s going to need a gun.”

The next day I sold the pistol.

To be continued.